How to check when your Windows 10 build expires

Windows 10 Insider Preview builds have a built-in "time bomb". Everyone has an expiration date, and Windows may not be able to fully boot after that date. So you can check when this will happen.

What happens when a Windows 1

0 build expires?

This only applies to unstable Insider Preview versions of Windows 10. The stable versions of Windows 10 never expire and stop working. even if Microsoft ends the upgrade with security patches.

When a build of Windows 10 expires, Microsoft says that it will display a warning that you are using an expired build. The warning is displayed once a day. In addition, user account control alerts are displayed. Earlier reports said Windows 10 reboots every three hours after it expires, so Microsoft may have made the process less troublesome.

In the past, Microsoft said that expired builds will not boot two weeks after the expiration date. You will need to reinstall a newer version of Windows – or an older stable version that is not expiring – to reuse your PC.

Microsoft issues these builds to prevent users from sticking to old, unstable versions of Windows 10 These builds of Windows 10 are provided for testing, and there's no point in testing an old build, which contains a number of bugs already fixed.

How to Check the Expiration Date

You can check the expiration date of the Winver application. Press the Windows key to open, type "winver" in the Start menu and press Enter. You can also press Windows + R to open the Run dialog box, type winver, and press Enter.

This dialog displays the exact expiration date and time of your Windows 10 build. You should upgrade to a newer Windows 10 inside build before the expiration date (or return to a previous stable build).

The Winver dialog also shows you the exact Windows 10 build you are using. This information can also be found in the Settings app.